What Happened With Chick-Fil-A's Rosemary Garlic Flatbread Wrap?
For the last seven years, Chick-Fil-A has won the customer satisfaction reward, for offering great service and delicious food. While the chain does offer rotating seasonal items, the menu on the whole pretty much stays the same at each location. When it comes time to decide on a new menu item, Chick-Fil-A does not mess around. The chain has its very own test kitchen, where it is constantly testing new recipes to see if any make the cut to appear on the restaurant's menus. The test kitchen is basically a modern-day Willy Wonka experience, with some inventions made available to the general public.
If you're one of the lucky few who gets to tour the test kitchen, you'll find things like a giant sauce wall and an endless variety of spices. Every item that lands on a Chick-Fil-A menu first goes through rigorous testing in the test kitchen. Several test kitchen inventions sadly never make it to the general public. One of the items that never saw the light of day was the rosemary garlic flatbread wrap. While it may sound delicious to some, its trial run produced far from stellar results. Luckily, even though the wrap failed, it did open the door for one of Chick-Fil-A's staple menu items.
It's failing led to a better invention
Christy Cook and Shona Johnson are the two Chick-Fil-A chefs responsible for customers' favorite menu items. They are also responsible for testing out unique ideas that may or may not eventually land on the menu. The rosemary garlic flatbread was one of those early inventions that polarized potential customers. The rosemary flatbread did make its way to customers in Memphis, Orlando, and Myrtle Beach, though the taste testers never knew it was a Chick-Fil-A product. According to Johnson, the rosemary flatbread was, "Very polarizing. There were lovers and there were haters."
Even though the rosemary flatbread never came to be, it did spur the invention of the cool wrap, which remains on the menu today. Instead of a rosemary flatbread, the company settled on a flaxseed flour flatbread, filled with grilled chicken, lettuce, and shredded cheese. The test kitchen continues to churn out new products, including the newest cauliflower sandwich that took four years to perfect. Even if customers only see a handful of the test kitchen's inventions, rest assured they are working hard to produce the best possible products possible.